Hugo Rifkind

You never really hear much from unionists, do you? I don’t mean the Irish ones, with their leery hate and wannabe milf wives and surnames which you always assume are going to be Paisley. You never really hear much from unionists, do you? I don’t mean the Irish ones, with their leery hate and wannabe milf wives and surnames which you always assume are going to be Paisley. I mean the original ones. Act of Union unionists. The Scottish ones. Haven’t they let things slip, a bit? I’m a unionist, I think. Only, let’s be honest, a fat lot of good I’m going to do. You want meandering musings, perhaps with a dubious quip about milfs up top, I’m up for it. Only, right now, I think we unionists need more than that.

I know Alistair Darling had left Loretto School, Musselburgh (for Aberdeen University) shortly before Andrew Marr had arrived (en route to Cambridge), but it was still odd to see the pair of them on my television last Sunday. Odd, I mean, that neither mentioned that they’d been to the same top Scottish public school, even though they were discussing whether it mattered that David Cameron had been to an English one. I was at that Scottish school, too. Decades had passed, though, so our paths didn’t cross. I remember Marr coming back once, to give us a talk on how we could all become editor of the Independent. Alas, none of us yet has. Darling was altogether more distant.

You know what I don’t believe in? Engineering. Shameless pseudo-science. You want to watch out for those so-called ‘engineers’. See that bridge that fell down in Cumbria the other day? Lordy, they’ll be cashing in on that. Up they’ll pop with their ‘stress points’ and ‘foundations’ and other such insider-ish, clubby mumbo-jumbo. As though any of it actually meant something. As though bridges hadn’t been falling down forever, for no particular reason at all. And medicine? God, that’s even worse. I mean, sure, sometimes you get a fever and somebody gives you some pills and you get better, but is there really a link? I doubt it. Kick up a fuss, though, and they freeze you out. They’ll stifle you.

You don’t expect people to take their political inspiration from Jon Bon Jovi. Or at least I don’t. Maybe that’s terribly presumptuous of me. Maybe some people do. ‘Tommy used to work on the docks/ Union’s been on strike/ He’s down on his luck, it’s tough/ so tough.’ Maybe that’s what got Tony Blair up in the morning. A decade of New Labour, ‘Livin’ on a Prayer’. It’s not entirely impossible, although I did always think that New Jersey’s most accessible rock star was more about bouffant hair and catchy guitar solos than hardcore political philosophy. Mind you, I always thought much the same about Tony Blair.

How long will it be before the word ‘voting’ is no longer associated with ‘governing’? How long will it be, do you reckon, before the connotations of the word ‘voting’ are all about reality television, and hardly about government at all? Not long, I’d say. With President Blair, with goats and General Dannatt, I worry that voting and government are drifting apart. You’d think more of us would mind. I don’t think you can blame reality television. Back when it was new — a decade ago, or thereabouts — there was a vogue among satirists for pointing out how hilarious British politics would be if it followed the same rules. ‘Iain Duncan Smith!’ people would chortle. ‘You have been evicted!!

RIP, then, Marcus the sheep. That’s ‘P’ as a plural in this case, obviously. As in ‘pieces’, and lots of them. Are any of the legs still going spare? Mmm. Love a bit of shank. Marcus, as you’ll have doubtless read, was a sheep reared at Lydd Primary School in Romney Marsh who was then sent off, as is the basic idea with sheep, for slaughter and butchery. All sorts of people were very upset about this. Not the children, it must be said, because they had a vote on this, and they did not choose life. Maybe not even Marcus himself, who by all accounts was a rather stoic and passive individual, because he was a sheep. No, it was mainly parents, who presumably preferred their meat to come in packets.

It’s the coal station workers who make the planet worth saving Not that long ago, for an article that never quite happened, I took a tour around Kingsnorth power station. This was just after environmental activists had staged a week-long ‘Climate Camp’ there. ‘Environmentalist?’ said my taxi-driver. ‘Journalist,’ I told him. He seemed surprised. Such is my debonair professional demeanour. He’d done quite well out of climate change activists, it turned out. It was seven miles from the train station to the power station, and cannabis and hand-woven teepees can really weigh you down. If no one was looking, or if it was raining, they’d often sneak a lift.

Rudeness at someone else’s wedding is worse than segregated seating Is it possible for Jim Fitzpatrick, the Labour MP for Poplar and Canning Town, who so recently stormed out of a segregated wedding, to wear underpants? I don’t see that it is. I can’t see how he’d get hold of them. Imagine going with him to a shop. He and his wife Sheila seem pretty inseparable, so she’d probably have to come too. Look Jim, you’d say. Voluminous stripy boxers, just the sort you like. Shall we get you some? ‘Never!’ he’d have to declare. ‘I shall only buy pants where my wife can also buy pants!’ Principles, eh? So off the three of you dutifully slog, to the lingerie section, to find him something frilly and plus-sized.

It’s the blood, muck and goo that makes space travel so interesting Should one wish to become a taikonaut in the Chinese space programme (and one does not, fervently, but one is just saying), here follows a short list of the things that Chinese military doctor Shi Bing Bing will be checking that one absolutely does not have. Bad breath. Body odour. A family history of serious illness in the past three generations. Scars that ‘may burst’. An unpleasant disposition. An unenthusiastic wife. Drug allergies. Ringworm. Indeed, probably any sort of worm. Tooth cavities. Athlete’s foot. Haemorrhoids. Excessive snot. Yep, he’s quite the body-fascist, is ‘Chandler’ Bing Bing. (One also has claustrophobia and vertigo. One wouldn’t have a hope.